Its centrally located pavilion attracted a broad range of speakers from the global peatlands and environmental communities. Even Former U.S. Vice President and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Al Gore stopped by to deliver a motivational talk in his capacity as founder and chair of The Climate Reality Project.

Working alongside coordinating partners, which include the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), the U.N. Environment Programme and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, through the ITPC, Indonesia is taking a pro-active approach to restoring and protecting its peatlands, said SPM Budisusanti, Director for Peatland Degradation Control in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Of 180 peatland-containing countries, Indonesia has the third largest area of the boggy ecosystems, after Canada and Russia. The archipelago also features the largest tropical peatland area in the world.

Although they are vital carbon sinks, Wetlands International reports that 15 percent of peatlands have been drained for agriculture, commercial plantations and for fuel extraction, which leads to oxidization and carbon release into the atmosphere, causing global warming.

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CIFOR advances human well-being, equity and environmental integrity by conducting innovative research, developing partners’ capacity, and actively engaging in dialogue with all stakeholders to inform policies and practices that affect forests and people. CIFOR is a CGIAR Research Center, and leads the CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA). Our headquarters are in Bogor, Indonesia, with offices in Nairobi, Kenya, Yaounde, Cameroon, and Lima, Peru.